You know, I was just going though an old box of stuff and found the Phone bills I paid in order to accept collect calls and talk long distance to my husband 4X a month ( for about 15-20 minutes each time) while he was in prison. I paid about $500.00 a month until I finally heard through friends standing in line at visiting that an outfit call PowerNetGlobal (I have no idea whether they are still in existence or not) could connect me for much less. The last bill I got from them was for $120.00 total.

Connecting with them made a big difference in the amount I had left to pay for food, electricity. Thank goodness I had a fairly descent job at the time but I still had to get a second part time job to make ends meet until I found the other (internet phone company) Things have probably changed since they won the class action suit I hope (But that final bill came in 6/27/02 as I was on my way to pick him up at the gate!) .

Now we know why the USA maintains the largest prison population in the World

Yes, any way they can get money out of you, they will. In the year of custody I spent, I not once bought the commissary, and told my parents to send me books instead. I realize that the prision food and toilitety supply are better priced, but in county they were charging as much as $1.20 for one Ramen noodle pack. Phone calls were as much as $7/15 minutes, plus a $5 charge anytime you loaded money onto the phone. And when you realize that the state and counties get over $100/per day/per inmate, and how they often have guards work 12 hour shifts to get overtime, on top of all this, you see how much money is really in the system. That doesn't even count the free labor they get for work programs and fire camp.

I was really looking forward to March 17, 2016, when the new rates were supposed to go into effect. As usual, I was disappointed. The fee to put money on an account did go down from $4.95 to $3.00, however, I'm being charged $.83 a minute. The cap for state prison was supposed to be $.11 per minute. Nobody can tell me that prisons and other businesses associated with the prison system aren't making money. I didn't realize that Sheriff's departments were getting a commission on the phone services. That's just wrong.

FeelingGui: It's not actually a "commission" the correct term is "Kickback"

I do hate it when I'm not politically correct......Haha

The prison complex is now a corporate ran industry and we the people are nothing but the pieces in the system on the assembly line

I am no expert on law by any stretch but doesn't it seem more than a little shady that one could interpret this that cops have an incentive to put more people in jail? Seems like that would illegal somehow ...